Another month of slow growth for Indian broadband: the connection base was up only 0.90% to 13.42 million at the end of January 2012, from 13.30 million at the end of December, according to the Indian telecom regulator TRAI. The mobile connection base increased to 903.72 Million in January as compared to 893.84 Million in December, an increase of 1.11%, but on a much larger base. The active mobile connection base is 73.03% of total, and stands at 659.99 million connections, but this includes multi-SIM users. Please keep in mind that this increased base is for the month of January, before the 2G Scam verdict from the Indian Supreme Court, following which Etisalat has stopped operations, and STel has shut down. Click here fordetails on license cancellation.

Active User Base of Telecom Operators

The Active connection data represents peak VLR (Visitor Location Register) data for the month, and excludes the CDMA VLR data for BSNL, which the telecom operator has not provided. Some stats:

– There were 659.99 million active connection in the month of January.
– Idea has 93.18% of its connections active– the maximum among all the operators.
– Airtel has the second highest active connection base of 91.17%, followed by Vodafone at 86.64%.
– Etisalat, S Tel, MTNL, and Loop are at the bottom in terms of the number of active subscribers.

In terms of the number of active subscribers, Airtel leads with 161.32 million, Vodafone at 128.74 million.

– In terms of Active connections, J&K leads with 82.33% active subscribers, followed by Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Mumbai has just 61.79% active subscribers, the lowest among all circles.

– Tamil Nadu has the most number of connections, with 76,646,012 connections. UP (East) is second with 72,905,996 and Maharashtra is third, with 69,190,246 connections.

– Bharti Airtel holds the maximum percentage market share of wireless connections at 19.58%, Reliance is at 16.71%,Vodafone at 16.44%,Idea at 11.97% and BSNL is at 10.80%.
– Companies like HFCL and Etisalat hold a mere 0.14% and 0.19% of the market share respectively.